Being an entrepreneur can certainly be a challenge. If you have dreams of owning your own business, you should consider the fact that it will require a mountain of effort. There are hundreds and even thousands of tasks that must be performed to insure everything goes smoothly.

One of these tasks you may have not given much thought is hiring employees. Who you hire to help you run your company is extremely important. If you choose the wrong people, you could hasten your young business’s downfall. Alternatively, if you do not perform the hiring process competently, you could run afoul of the law. With that in mind, below five mistakes in the hiring process you should try to avoid.

Skipping the Background Check

A background check is essential to the hiring process these days. If you think you can simply save some money by avoiding this step, you could certainly face problems later on.

Nearly 50 percent of federal prison inmates go on to reoffend. If you hire an ex-con, there’s about a 50 percent chance they will commit another crime. This time, however, your company or your customers could be the victims. You won’t know about a person’s criminal record unless you actually make the effort to find out what it is.

Not Examining a Person’s Social Media

While not all job applicants use social media, many do. Using social media as part of the hiring process is also now becoming increasingly popular. 96 percent of recruiters look at a candidate’s’ social media, and rightly so.

The reason why is easy to understand. You may find clues about behaviors that would not be a good fit for your company and could cause problems later down the road. For example, if a candidate is reposting content that sympathizes with terrorists on Twitter, chances are you don’t want that person working for you.

Hiring People You Know

New small business owners often make the mistake of simply hiring people they know. This could be friends, family members, college roommates or what have you. However, unless your goal is to have a family business, you should probably think more strategically about the hiring process. You want to hire the best applicants for the job. You may be biased towards people you already know. Furthermore, employing friends or family could actually do irreparable harm to those relationships. You need to keep this in mind.

Not Open to Outsourcing the Process

Hiring new employees is a very complex and time consuming process. Even worse, it’s a legal mind field. If you make mistakes and disregard the law, you may end up being sued. This is one of the reasons why many companies outsource the hiring process to a recruitment process outsourcing firm, or RPO for short.

This will move the legal burden to that third party. Furthermore, it will save you a lot of effort by having experts perform the recruitment process for you. You’ll be able to focus on more important tasks like your end product. It has been reported that two thirds of companies partly or wholly outsource the recruitment process.

Ignoring Intuition

The interview is one of the most important parts of the recruitment process. The reason that is true is because it gives you information you can’t discern just by looking at a resume. How a person acts and converses in person is a big part of whether or not that person is employable or a good fit with your company. In this regard, intuition is important. Someone who makes a good impression may be a better choice than a person who comes off as antisocial but has more accomplishments on their resume.

The hiring process is extremely important. It can be tricky for a new business, but you must take recruitment efforts seriously, and there can be serious negative consequences if you don’t.

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